In most towns of the developed countries, parking in certain areas is subjected to payment of parking fees. Payment is generally effected at parking meters, by inserting coins and/or by using prepaid cards. An individual meter can be installed at each parking place, or collective meters can be used, serving a specific group of parking places or distributed at more or less regular distances over the paying parking area. The check on the occurred payment is effected by authorised people (monitoring staff or wardens) by looking either directly at the parking meters or at a receipt to be exposed inside the parked vehicle and indicating the parking expiration time.
Use of parking meters entails a number of problems both for the parking service administration (or any other authority managing the service) and for the users. The administration has to take care of the maintenance of the parking meters, what entails high costs for both the material and the maintenance staff. The users have to provide themselves with the coins or the cards and, in case of collective meters, they are to find the proper or the closest meter and then to come back to the vehicle to leave the receipt. Moreover, there is no versatility about the end time of the parking, which may lead to overpayments. This is rather uncomfortable.
Parking payment can be effected also by special prepaid vouchers corresponding to predetermined parking durations. Use of the vouchers is more comfortable for the users, which are no longer to search for a parking meter, however they always are to provide themselves in advance with the vouchers. Moreover, the problems for the administration still exist, since payment by means of vouchers does not replace payment at the parking meters.
Several solutions have been already proposed for automating the parking payment.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,316 discloses an electronic toll collection system that can be used, inter alia, for collecting parking fees. The system is based on an automatic identification of a vehicle and of an associated account to which the parking fees can be charged. A suitable transponder capable of emitting an identification signal must be carried with the car, and an interrogating unit must be provided at the parking entrance/exit. That unit is connected to a management centre containing a database of the accounts. This solution is suitable for parking lots in which entrance/exit is controlled by a barrier actuated by the interrogating unit, but it is not suitable for payment of the parking along the town streets, which would require a reader at each parking place.
WO-A 02/11074 discloses a system allowing payment of the parking fees by using a mobile telephone or the like. The mobile telephone has a removable cover with a transponder acting substantially as an e-tag that is read by an e-tag reader in the parking meter. The parking meter has also means for transmitting information, such as tariff information, to the mobile station. The system further comprises a central station that receives information from the parking meters and that can communicate with the mobile station for receiving therefrom information about the desired parking duration and the consequent electronic payment instructions, or for informing the user of the expiration of the parking time and asking for further payment. The system does not eliminates the parking meters, and thus the problems mentioned above still exist, with the only exception of the need for the users to provide themselves with coins or a payment card. The need to connect the meters with the central station and to equip them with e-tag readers and means for communication with the mobile station makes the system complex and expensive.
US 2003/0141363 discloses a parking payment system that allows dispensing with the use of parking meters. The users can dialogue with a central station through their mobile phones to communicate the parking commencement and end, after having provided themselves with a “starting packet” including user-specific codes to be communicated to the central station, monetary amounts etc. Also the monitoring of the parking payment by the wardens requires a communication with the central station through the mobile network.
Parking payment systems therefore generally make use of parking meters, while systems not making use of parking meters require that both users and parking wardens communicate with a central station through a mobile network.
According to the invention, there is on the contrary provided a system for automating parking payment by use of mobile terminals and e-tags, which dispenses with use of parking meters and generally of any kind of stationary equipment in the paying parking areas and also allows locally performing at least part of the payment operations and the check on the occurred payment.